Microsoft Digital Threats from East Asia Report – chilling
The Microsoft Digital Threats from East Asia Report September 2023 is a landmark document that reveals the global scale of Chinese Cyber operations and Influence Operations. It comments on North Korea, too.
I have been reading cybersecurity reports since the 90s when the internet first became the enabler, the attack vector, for cybercrime and cybersecurity. Over time, the focus has extended past scams, cyber espionage, and data hacks to make money (still North Korea’s focus) to using social media to influence the world.
The Microsoft Digital Threats from East Asia Report states:
- Chinese state-affiliated cyber threat groups have focused on the South China Sea Region. It directs cyber espionage at governments and other critical entities that ring this maritime area. Australia is part of this.
- China has become more effective at engaging social media users with influence operations (IO). Traditionally, it relied on sheer volume to reach users through networks of inauthentic social media accounts. Since 2022, China-aligned social media networks have engaged directly with authentic users on social media, targeted specific candidates in content about US elections, and posed as American voters. Separately, China’s state-affiliated multilingual social media influencer initiative has successfully engaged target audiences in at least 40 languages and grown its audience to over 103 million.
- China has continued scaling up its IO campaign, expanding efforts to new languages and platforms to increase its global footprint. On social media, campaigns deploy thousands of inauthentic accounts across dozens of websites, spreading memes, videos, and messages in multiple languages.
- Chinese Communist Party (CCP) propaganda is pushed via localised news websites in more than 35 countries.
- Chinese state-affiliated threat groups targeting US critical infrastructure, including transportation (such as ports and rail), utilities (such as energy and water treatment), medical infrastructure (including hospitals), and telecommunications infrastructure (including satellite communications and fibre optic systems). Microsoft assesses that this campaign could provide China with capabilities to disrupt critical infrastructure and communications between the United States and Asia.
Continued
- China has grown its bilateral relations and global partnerships through the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Concurrently, Chinese state-affiliated threat actors have conducted parallel cyber operations against BRI private and public entities.
- Since March 2023, Chinese IO assets on Western social media have begun to leverage generative artificial intelligence (AI) to create visual content. This relatively high-quality visual content has already drawn higher levels of engagement from authentic social media users.
- ‘Multilingual internet celebrity studios’ (多语种网红工作室) leverage the power of authentic voices. Over 230 state media employees and affiliates masquerade as independent social media influencers across all significant Western social media platforms. In 2022 and 2023, new influencers debuted every seven weeks on average. Recruited, trained, promoted, and funded by China Radio International (CRI) and other Chinese state media outfits, these influencers spread expertly localised CCP propaganda that achieves meaningful engagement with target audiences around the world, reaching a combined following of at least 103 million across multiple platforms speaking at least 40 languages.
Why? Social media users are easily influenced and tend to believe the rubbish peddled instead of looking at facts. If China can influence a US Presidential election, it can quickly spread misinformation that becomes the ‘truth’ in the potentially lucrative East Asia region.
The Future
Microsoft says the absolute success of China in its Influencer Operations (IO) means it will increase its covert social media campaigns, actively sowing discord along racial, socioeconomic, and ideological lines.
We can expect wider cyber espionage against opponents of the CCP’s geopolitical objectives on every continent. While China-based threat groups continue to develop and utilise impressive cyber capabilities, North Korea, Iran and Russia will continue to engage in hack-and-leak campaigns.
Microsoft Digital Threats from East Asia Report
Social media is an effective way of influencing human society and behavior and shaping public opinion. Cyber influence operation means using cyber tools and methods in order to manipulate public opinion. Today, many countries use cyberspace, and specifically social media, to manage cyber influence operations as part of holistic information warfare.
The Secret War of Cyber Influence Operations and How to Identify Them
